Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic generation machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do to automatically start generating more web traffic is add web content on a regular basis!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase of this process. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing site has been built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we look at the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. We explain how to configure a WordPress site so you can attract visitors automatically when you begin publishing web content on your site.
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Configuration
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With business getting ever more competitive worldwide, it’s worth learning about any and every advantage that can help you improve your own results and performance online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage over other competitors. Having an expertly configured website gives your business a flying start from the moment your site is launched.
The Configuration Process Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here is a simple way to describe the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does a whole lot more labor go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special kind of expertise.
Allow me to illustrate this with a story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
Everything is running smoothly in the widget-making manufacturing plant when production suddenly stops.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert walks immediately towards the control box. After staring at the wiring board for 3 minutes, the expert then produces a teeny-weeny hammer from his tool belt and makes a single tap near the left side of the box.
Immediately, everything springs back to life.
The floor manager is greatly relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
Angrily, the manager dials the expert. Why were they charged such an exorbitant fee for less than five minutes work? He then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive web traffic to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the widget plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have every right to be compensated fairly for having invested years developing the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to immediately assess and avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a website or blog set up so all you have to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other traffic-generating web properties would be automatically notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your website?)
While the solution to many problems may seem ridiculously easy once it’s been implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few internal settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install to add desired functionalities to your site.
- Which third-party accounts need to be set up and activated to get specific results
- Which options you need to configure in order to ensure that things will function as envisioned, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This stage of the WordPress traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite involved and complicated. This is because it’s not just about installing a solution, clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your server, your website or blog, and a number of third-party sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If all the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your hosting account for site installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is tweaking settings and options in your web server that affect how your website will handle all web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your web hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your website can attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like integrating server-level spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After fine-tuning your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step is to configure various external sites and services.
External Sites
The basic idea of adding external sites is that all content will get published to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will get syndicated automatically to other parts of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you add these external sites to your setup, content linked back to your website will get automatically fed to these platforms. Your content and site will be exposed to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the sites and services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site’s settings to save time and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, here are just some of the accounts you will need to have set up before configuring your site’s settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmasters)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with useful information, tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your account has been with Google have been set up, the account information can be used with traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, marketing campaigns, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, you can add tracking code to all of your web pages in WordPress using plugins and feed data instantly to many other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account and site details with Bing Webmaster Tools have been set up, use your details with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to grow a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your automated traffic generation system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social media and social bookmarking accounts in order to configure these as part of your traffic generation system.
Once you have set up and configured everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and drive new visitors to your site.
You should have accounts with all of the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can set up. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose those that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools.
(You can syndicate your content to lots of social bookmarking sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add an RSS feed from your WordPress blog …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your RebelMouse social feed.
There are various sites and platforms you can incorporate into your traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your site’s settings.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
Global Settings – WordPress
The WordPress administration area contains a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Area)
As stated below the Update Services section title,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services text area
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section includes only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services to this section and WordPress will do the rest …
(Notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress!)
Download A Comprehensive List Of Ping Services For Your WordPress Site!
Click the link below to download a comprehensive list of reliable and authoritative ping services for your WordPress site or blog:
Download A List Of Ping Services For Your WordPress Site
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Note: If you need help setting up the list of ping services on your site, we recommend using a professional web services provider. You can find professional WordPress service providers in our WordPress Services Directory.
Reading Settings
This section affects how visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can influence traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your site to view the rest of the content from a partial feed, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
As far as your traffic system is concerned, however, the main setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables WordPress to automatically ping your list of update services whenever a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings Screen)
Discussion Settings
Although the settings in this section are mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to sites linked to from your articles, and to allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks). This can work for you, but it can also drive bad traffic in the form of SPAM comments …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings Section)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your site’s SEO-friendly URLs …
(Configuring permalinks)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, go here: Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality to your site, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more traffic to your site
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is completely safe from a cyberattack.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and bots.
Go here to learn more:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web pages easy for search engines to find and index …
(WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your site more search engine friendly)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your site’s SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to find, classify and index, it allows you to specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing buttons to your site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their website with free or inexpensive plugins.
Most social plugins allow you to select which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content which users can unlock by sharing your page.
Configuring WordPress Traffic Features In Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, many themes also provide built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes allow you to configure settings for better traffic results)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing buttons to your content is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features)
Other Configuration Steps For WordPress Traffic Automation
Last (but by no means least) in the traffic configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you are making money online, it’s important that your site is compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Legally Compliant?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, see this article:
WordPress Post Tags & Post Categories
Categories and tags help improve traffic by improving your site’s SEO.
(WordPress categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search optimization.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s tags and categories should be reviewed and set up during the Website Planning Phase.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and categories you have set up.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
A site map that lists all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external sites find more of your online content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. HTML site maps provide visitors with a an understandable map of how your content is structured, whereas XML sitemaps are mostly just a bunch of code that only search engine bots can read. Although search engines like Google will index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – A Source Of Lost Traffic Opportunities!
When visitors searching for your site enter the wrong URL into their browser or click on hyperlinks pointing to an incorrect destination on your site, they are greeted with a 404 error page …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your server, there are several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your website or blog has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do to bring web traffic is post new content consistently.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of a number of different components and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many website professionals months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as can be automated. This step is addressed in the next section of our WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Part 3
To keep reading about this topic, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of an article series designed to help business owners learn how to grow their business and drive traffic organically with a WordPress-driven website and proven web marketing strategies.
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